allaboutmusic

Hey folks,

I am looking for video editing software that will be able to edit together multiple video streams to synchronised audio (sorry if I'm using incorrect technical terminology). Ideally it should be able to blend between them in several ways:

- 2/4 combined in the frame, like an Andy Warhol-style painting
- fading / switching from one to the other
- picture in picture etc

Is there anything relatively inexpensive available, or am I looking at blowing megabucks on something like this? I'd be running it on my iMac 24.

Thanks!

Glory's Sun

While I'm an AVID fan through and through, it's going to be overkill for you.

Look into Sony Vegas (personally I hate the fucking program). Should have all the standard box effects that you mentioned.

If you need something more robust, then you'll want to go with either Edius Pro, Premiere Pro, Final Cut or Avid, but I'm really doubting you'll need those. Vegas is very basic (IMO) and is great for the type of editing that you're looking to do.

Vegas should be able to import any format of video on the fly so you shouldn't have an issue with that. If that doesn't work, then you can always find a freelance editor who will be willing to do it for you.. most of us are expensive but, some are willing to take a significant price cut for the sake of their portfolio.

One other thing, what format are you trying to get this in? Are you going to be pushing it to a H264 container? AVI or MPEG container? You may need a compression program like Sorenson Squeeze to get the results you really want depending on what your final container is going to be.

allaboutmusic

Thanks gucci - that is helpful. I'm not very knowledgeable about containers and codecs, I'd basically like to be able to generate content for Youtube / Facebook and be able to generate universally-playable output on PC / Mac or DVD.

Does Vegas allow you to blend multiple things together, like if you had the same person playing different characters in different takes of the same shot, or green-screen effects?

Glory's Sun

yeah all editing apps have the blending and chroma key functions.

Some are better than others (AVID kills everyone in Chroma (spectramatte ftw) Key work.

if you're just doing web conversions then you should just be able to output to a H.264 or MOV container and be ok. you'll just have to play with the settings to get what you want.

Vegas should also have multi-cam functions (meh..once again this is AVID territory- sense a theme here?) so if you have several cams on a shot you can go through pretty quickly and be done with the sequence. I've done 8 camera shot scenes before in Media Composer and had the 15 minute segment edited in about 30 minutes because of the ease of it's Multi-cam functions.

allaboutmusic

I've just looked up Avid and I don't think I can swing £2k for it! I can't seem to find a cut-down version, unless Pinnacle Studio is their Lite version.

Checking out Final Cut etc now. Vegas seems to be Windows-only software unfortunately.

Glory's Sun

ahh ok, I wasn't sure if Vegas was mac supported or not. My bad.

Avid is a bit pricey but consider that Media Composer used to be 5K for just software and they've done a lot better on price point.

Final Cut is expensive as well.. check out Edius Pro and see if they have a mac ready version.. also check out Premiere (it's adobe they have mac versions -it's on my MBP) or you could always just go with After Effects.

I'd stay away from Pinnacle. AVID bought them out, but didn't change any of their software and it's MEH at best.

allaboutmusic

I think Final Cut Express looks like the one I want - have just watched a few of the tutorials and it looks ideal... about £120 with education discount too.

Glory's Sun

ok well there ya go

I think you can get Media Composer for about 200$ with education discount..

anyway, if you have any questions let me know.. I'll try to help you out. Just be careful of Final Cuts media management. When you first open the project, you need to save it or else FC doesn't know where to point the media to. (dumb coding I know)..

also be careful on it's chroma work. you'll need to pay attention to it's feathering and lighting settings.

allaboutmusic

Just checked out the Avid educational offer, and a great offer it is too - except I'm not a student. Is there anything to stop me getting my sister to purchase it on my behalf?

Glory's Sun

nope.. there isn't

just don't tell anyone

telekinetic

This may need to migrate to a new thread, but what's the ethical difference between getting someone to purchase you a student license illicitly and just straight pirating it?

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